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New guidance identifies patients with the greatest need for bariatric and metabolic surgery as experts warn delaying treatment could put them at a greater risk of complications from their disease as well as from COVID-19.
Temperature and latitude do not appear to be associated with the spread of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to a study of many countries published in CMAJ (Canadian Medical Association Journal) http://www.cmaj.ca/lookup/doi/10.1503/cmaj.200920, but school closures and other public health measures are having a positive effect.
MERS, which struck South Korea in a 2015 outbreak, was caused by a coronavirus--the same family of viruses that is responsible for COVID-19 (disease: COVID-19, virus: SARS-CoV2). Recently, a Korean research team announced that it had developed a new vaccine platform using RNA-based adjuvants for the MERS coronavirus (MERS-CoV). The research team successfully conducted an experiment on nonhuman primates. It is expected that the new vaccine platform will soon be applicable to the development of a COVID-19 vaccine, an urgent global health priority.
PHILADELPHIA - When Castleman Disease patients have a flare of their symptoms, they experience a cytokine storm inside their bodies - a hyper-response from the immune system that can cause a fever, organ failure, and even death. Now researchers at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania say they know what's happening at the cellular level of the immune system when these cytokine storms occur, and the answer not only informs future potential Castleman therapies but may also provide new insight into why similar events take place in COVID-19 patients.
What Viewpoint Says: Methods for providing adolescents and young adults with reproductive health care during the COVID-19 pandemic are described.
Authors: Tracey A. Wilkinson, M.D., M.P.H., of the Indiana University School of Medicine in Indianapolis, is the corresponding author.
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(doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2020.1884)
Treatment for Diverticulitis -- updated ASCRS Guidelines published in Diseases of the Colon & Rectum
May 7, 2020 - Reflecting research-driven changes in clinical practice, a revised set of evidence-based recommendations for the medical and surgical treatment of left-sided colonic diverticulitis has been published in Diseases of the Colon & Rectum (DC&R), the official journal of the American Society of Colon and Rectal Su
Researchers at the RIKEN Center for Biosystems Dynamics Research (BDR) in Japan have identified changes in the aging brain related to blood circulation. Published in the scientific journal Brain, the study found that natural age-related enlargement of the ventricles--a condition called ventriculomegaly--was associated with a lag in blood drainage from a specific deep region of the brain. The lag can be detected easily with MRI, making it a potential biomarker for predicting ventriculomegaly and the aging brain, which can then be treated quickly.
The anti-cancer medicine venetoclax could improve the current therapy for estrogen receptor-positive (ER+) breast cancer - the most common form of breast cancer in Australia - according to preclinical studies led by Walter and Eliza Hall Institute researchers.
According to many observations, certain virus infections may play a part in the autoimmune attack that leads to type 1 diabetes. Researchers at Karolinska Institutet and at the universities of Jyväskylä and Tampere have now produced a vaccine for these viruses in the hope that it could provide protection against the disease. The study is published 6 May 2020 in the scientific journal Science Advances.
From compact biosensors and spectrometers to invisible devices and quantum computers, applications related to integrated photonics are increasingly sought after. As in optical fibres, guiding light in integrated photonic circuits is achieved by a local increase of the refractive index (RI) of the material. Ultrafast laser writing is the only technology that allows three-dimensional RI modification in transparent materials, thus the direct fabrication of 3D photonic devices.
Clear, positive, messaging that is segmented by age, culture, and geography is key to helping the public stick to social distancing measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 infection, say behavioural experts in a commentary accepted for publication in the Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health.
Messaging that is authoritarian and/or punitive in tone and socially divisive will have the opposite effect, say the nine authors, led by Professor Chris Bonell of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
The COVID-19 pandemic has placed unprecedented pressure on societies worldwide, given the pandemic's rapid, often deadly spread. In health care, the pandemic has raised the pressing question of how society should allocate scarce resources during a crisis. This is the question experts addressed today in a new position statement published by the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society (DOI: 10.1111/jgs.16537). The statement focuses primarily on whether age should be considered when making decisions to allocate scarce resources.
Clinicians from two hospitals in Boston report that the majority of even the sickest patients with COVID-19--those who require ventilators in intensive care units--get better when they receive existing guideline-supported treatment for respiratory failure. The clinicians, who are from Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) and Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, published their findings in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
An international research team has identified the mechanism behind one of science's most enduring mysteries: what makes the 100-year-old tuberculosis (TB) vaccine so effective at preventing newborn deaths from diseases other than TB?
The ability of Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG)--one of the oldest, safest and cheapest vaccines available--to provide protection to newborns beyond its intended purpose of fighting off TB has been known since at least the 1940s, but until now no one has been able to explain why or show how it works.
Lower extremity artery disease (LEAD) is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality worldwide, affecting hundreds of millions of people. On top of that, LEAD also represents a prominent marker of associated coronary artery disease (CAD), as demonstrated by ?70% prevalence of significant CAD in patients with symptomatic LEAD. Accordingly, in the last decades increasing attention has been devoted to the management of LEAD, including antithrombotic strategies in asymptomatic patients, symptomatic patients and following surgical or endovascular revascularization.